


Rhythm and Soul

by shadesofbrixton



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Is Soft, Crowley Invents Things and Is Smug, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-30
Updated: 2005-05-30
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesofbrixton/pseuds/shadesofbrixton
Summary: Crowley invents rock music. No insult is intended by any of the band commentary. Slight anachronisms will be cheerfully ignored.I wrote this in 2005 for Jules' birthday, and then fished it out and dusted it off for the archive at the launch of the Good Omens miniseries. Much to my surprise, 14 years later, it doesn't seem to be too terribly embarrassing.





	Rhythm and Soul

 

_“Soul is the rhythm o' sex. …. The working man's rhythm.”_

_“Soul is the music people understand. Sure it's basic and it's simple. … Sure there's a lot of different music you can get off on but soul is more than that. It takes you somewhere else. It grabs you by the balls and lifts you above the shite.”_

\- “The Commitments,” Roddy Doyle

 

 

Crowley knew he was onto something with the acoustic guitar.

It had taken ages – Aziraphale had gone and suggested, all innocently of course, that perhaps the heavenly choir should descend every now and then to spread the knowledge of celestial chorus to the unwashed masses, and ever since then it had been all psalms and hymns and eternally sung dedications of the Glory of the L – well. Him. It was enough to make a demon sick to his stomach.

Or give him a quite nasty headache, at any rate.

Which was why the acoustic guitar had to happen. And it was all so simple, really. Take a lute, tweak the neck, add a string or two, and suddenly there was more to play than a waltz or a minuet.

There was jazz.

And then there was blues.

And then there was rock.

“Dear boy,” Aziraphale said, with that exasperated and admiring note in his voice that let Crowley know he’d gotten it quite right. “You’ve been spending far too much time over the sea. You really do look quite the fool. Why’ve you turned up your trouser legs?” They sat down at the wrought iron café tables and the angel proceeded to pick apart his dry toast.

Crowley twisted a finger through the oily forelock that had tornadoed over his forehead. “Just wait,” he said, and started patting through his coat for who knew what. “Wait’ll you see what Britain comes up with. The Rolling Stones, and they’ll be perfect.”

Aziraphale frowned at the excessive zippers that Crowley started yanking on. “Oh, dear. Dear me. I see.”

“What? What does that mean?” Crowley had glanced up sharply, frowning. But he cut Aziraphale off before the angel had a chance to mention The Beatles* with a noise of triumph, and yanked a small plastic triangle out of a pocket. “All thanks to this, angel.”

Aziraphale squinted. “What is that?”

“A pick,” Crowley said, the same way he’d said “a car” and “a pirate ship,” and “an apple, you simply must try one, they’re fantastic.”

It was, to put it plainly, an Obviously Bad Thing. Aziraphale frowned tightly. “They aren’t going to like this.”

“But it’s brilliant,” Crowley protested, clicking the small wedge of plastic onto the table between them. It had an odd signature carved into it, something that looked like “Evils” upside-down, but Aziraphale wondered if the letters might’ve rearranged themselves when he wasn’t looking.

“I fail to see what’s brilliant about it.” He kept rotating his tea, as though the dregs might show him something.

Crowley puffed out a put-upon sigh, resting his chin in his hand for a moment. Aziraphale couldn’t quite tell, of course, but he knew those eye were at ends with him. Of a sudden, Crowley stood and extended a hand. “Come. Walk with me.”

They crossed the square, Crowley tugging the angel along eager by the hand, toward the bandstand. The small whitewashed pagoda was surrounded by explosions of yellow and orange daffodils, as were most parks in Britain, but this one in particular. Crowley wondered if Aziraphale might’ve had something to do with that, since they came to it so often, but he didn’t bother to ask.

The flowers brushed against Crowley’s ankles as they paused, and he made a sweeping gesture toward the now-empty bandstand, the bare park. “Just look,” Crowley said. “Here and here – everywhere. Just wait, you’ll see. Soon, everyone will have them. And they’ll play for money, angel.”

“Bringing music to the people,” Aziraphale said, almost admiringly.

“No.” Crowley looked horrified for a moment. “No, commercialism.”

“Nothing but music brings people closer to G – ”

“No!” Crowley looked quite alarmed, even behind the heavy frames of the sunglasses. He trampled a daffodil in his backward step. Aziraphale set it to rights with a muttered word and a subtle wave of his hand.

“I _am_ sorry, my dear boy.” And Crowley hated how angels could look truly conciliatory after success. “But really, you’ve made it so that anyone has access to this sort of thing.”

“Anyone,” Crowley said, hands in pockets, staring at the flowers. He wasn’t sure, but there seemed to be more of them than when they’d set out. His head snapped up, and a white incisor gleamed as he smiled wickedly at the angel. “ _Anyone._ Including people who can’t sing.”

“Oh, well,” Aziraphale cocked his head, considering. “I’m sure They don’t mind…I mean, that is to say, He doesn’t Judge – ”

Crowley’s snort of disbelief interrupted him, and Aziraphale had the grace to look embarrassed. The high slope of his cheeks tinted just a bit. “Discord,” Crowley said, once more quite pleased with himself. “Discord, dissonance, being tone deaf…and _cover bands._ ”

Aziraphale did not look happy. “And what then?”

Crowley looked much more in his element. “And then rock. And after rock, _punk_.”

“Punk.” The angel blanched. “That doesn’t sound very…”

“Oh, wait. Glam before that, I think, and that’ll be just awful, and a bit after all of that,” he held his hands up as if he were reading a headline, “ _Pop_.” The consonants exploded out of his mouth.

Aziraphale sighed. “I suppose you’re dead set on this?”

“I need this,” Crowley said, not apologizing. “You know I need this. You remember the disaster with the traveling circus.”

“Oh, Crowley, you couldn’t have known that children would have loved it so much – ”

“The point is,” Crowley said loudly, dropping his hands back into his pockets. “They’re waiting for me to do something.”

Aziraphale nodded, commiserating, and they started to walk again.

“We’ll have to counter it all, you know,” the angel added, almost hesitant to throw Crowley’s mood again.

“Oh, I know,” Crowley reassured him. “As you will, I suppose. Christian rock and all that. Revivals and the like.”

“I’m quite sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aziraphale protested primly, stooping to pluck a flower. Its orange center perked in his direction.

“Why angel,” Crowley did his best to sound surprised. “I had no idea you could lie.”

The pinks plash crept back across Aziraphale’s cheeks. “Yes, well.” He cleared his throat, a bit awkwardly, and they walked on, the hard-packed dirt path comfortably lined with wickets leading them toward the children’s garden. “You do realize, dear boy, the flaw in this scheme of yours.”

“Flaw?” Crowley scratched at the back of his neck. “What flaw would that be?”

“Well, as far as I can see it, you’re going to be stuck here with all this rubbish music at the same time.”

Crowley stopped, and Aziraphale watched him curiously. The demon didn’t turn to look at him, just stared blankly ahead in his sunglasses. Then, slowly, his head turned to regard Aziraphale. “…buggering Hell,” he decided.

Aziraphale gave a surprised little laugh. “Quite.”

“Well.” Those shaded eyes faced the path again, and his face broke out into a sudden, sharp grin. “Well, angel, you’re just going to have to make sure they aren’t all crap.”

He had started walking again before Aziraphale made his legs propel him forward. “Counter you talent for talent, you mean.”

“Divine intervention. As it were.”

Aziraphale frowned disapprovingly. “Crowley. You could get into rather large trouble for this.”

“You leave that to me. What’s the worst that could happen?” **

Aziraphale still didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he kept the rest of his doubts to himself. Which, Crowley thought, rather meant he was going to plan something annoyingly counterproductive. “If you’re quite certain,” was all the angel said.

“I rather am. Now then.” He propped his hands on his hips, and leaned against the pillar of the small fish viewing bridge. The overfed carp swlopped against the surface from beneath.

“Now then,” Aziraphale echoed rather anxiously, studying Crowley once more.

“Don’t you think,” Crowley said silkily, turning on his companion, “that you ought to at least hear it before you pass judgment?”

Aziraphale backpedaled immediately, his smooth hands raising between them. “Oh, Crowley, I don’t think – ”

“Now, angel, that wouldn’t be very _fair_ if you didn’t listen first. Judge not, lest ye be – and all that.” The words burned his tongue, and he sucked on it silently for a moment, waiting for Aziraphale to come ‘round.

“Oh, very well,” the angel said, not without a bit of temper in his voice.

Grinning again, Crowley turned away, tapped two fingers on the cheerfully painted foot bridge, and stood back.

The most torturous sound Aziraphale had ever heard filled the air. ***

“Oh my,” he said, his hands clapped over his ears.

“Mmhm,” Crowley agreed, pulling on Aziraphale’s forearms. He had a rather self-satisfied expression on his face.

“This is…Crowley, I can’t listen to this. It’s. Well, it’s rather odd, isn’t it?” The music wrapped around them, and the angel looked first over one shoulder and then the other, looking to see if anyone else could hear it.

The smile on Crowley’s face grew bite. “You want to dance, don’t you.”

Aziraphale looked at him as though he’d sprouted wings. Or something more unusual. “Are you _asking_ me to dance?”

There wasn’t much pity in a demon’s body, what with all the fires of hell being so density intensive. But Crowley rather thought that perhaps then was the time to pull it out. He extended a long-fingered hand, curiously tan for the season, and Aziraphale took it rather less than coltishly.

“You can box step just as well to anything in common time,” Crowley reminded him. He pressed close to the angel, arm slinging around his neck to pull him in closer. Aziraphale’s hand settled lightly on Crowley’s waist, and they rotated carefully on the small path.

Aziraphale led.

“I hope you’re appreciating the lack of ‘on the head of a pin’ jokes,” Crowley said, head nodding along to keep beat.

“Mercifully so. Crowley, this…music…”

“Makes you think about sex, doesn’t it.” His grin sharpened itself again, and he pressed in closer.

Aziraphale seemed to suppress the slightest of shivers, his clear face shuttering for a moment. “ _Please_ don’t do that, dear boy.”

“Makes you want to move _faster_ ,” Crowley said, the double meaning clear in his words.

“You know I don’t – ”

“Makes you want to, though.”

“Oh, _do_ leave off,” Aziraphale snapped. Crowley snickered at him, and they made another turn around the garden. “Since when have you been so obsessed with sex, Crowley, anyhow?”

Crowley’s hand tightened in Aziraphale’s, just the briefest pressure, where it remained raised next to them. “Since I met you, angel.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Crowley.”

“Mmn.”

“You’ve known me since the beginning of Time.”

“Mmn.”

They made another turn.

“You know,” Aziraphale said, and licked his lips. The music tapered, but they continued their dance. “This all makes me rather nervous, my dear.”

“Angel.” Crowley’s voice had somehow dropped a register, or Aziraphale hadn’t been listening, but _something_ was different. “It’s my _job_ to make you nervous.”

He pressed closer again, and Aziraphale forgot how to breathe for a moment. “So this is about your job, then.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Honestly.” Crowley didn’t sound flustered so much as amused. “Aren’t I simply allowed to appreciate your aesthetic appeal? Isn’t it _you_ who’s always saying beauty brings us closer to G – er. You know.”

“Quite,” Aziraphale said, sounding rather distracted, and then frowned. “We’re stopping.”

Crowley had, indeed, stopped. At Aziraphale’s words, he stepped away, and made an odd little bow with his head. “The music stopped.”

“The music. Of course.” Again the pink splash over Aziraphale’s cheeks, and it made Crowley want to ask him if he’d been experiencing some difficulties in his body.

“People have been dancing for centuries,” Crowley pointed out. “To your precious Foxtrots and Etudes. This isn’t any different.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be entirely able to convince the others of that,” Aziraphale said, reluctant but amused.

Crowley stepped closer to him, fingers brushing the back of his hand, and grinned. “But you’ll try, won’t you.”

Aziraphale looked away, nearly scowling. Crowley smiled, satisfied, and his hands went back into his pockets. He watched the carp circle restlessly, Aziraphale coming up next to him, and both of them let the scattering of children on their way to supper race through the gardens, upsetting a rose bush and a tangle of ivy on their way. Crowley carefully, wordlessly, set both to rights before the angel could notice their disturbance.

And then Aziraphale tapped the bridge twice, and they danced again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> * Theologists still aren’t sure if this mightn’t be the other way ‘round – Heaven taking credit for the Stones and Hell the Beatles.
> 
> ** Little did Crowley know that he would have the same reaction approximately sixty-three years later, to the word ‘disco’, a term for which Heaven no longer claims responsibility. There is, however, question to the dubious origins of one John Joseph Travolta. 
> 
> *** One must recall, of course this was before both Philip Glass and the word ‘techno,’ but after Robert Johnson selling his soul at the Crossroads – which is what Aziraphale heard, and a song that one can’t enjoy without a good bit of sin involved.


End file.
